Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond 2020/21

[Per]

Quarter finals in Sweden's second tier league, which were played in a best out of five format, are done:

Timrå vs AIK 3-1
Timrå - AIK 5-1
Timrå - AIK 1-2
AIK - Timrå 0-1
AIK - Timrå 3-4 (ot)

AIK put up a better fight than expected after losing the first game 5-1, but were still eliminated in four by Timrå.

Karlskoga vs Västerås 3-1
Karlskoga - Västerås 4-2
Karlskoga - Västerås 5-4
Västerås - Karlskoga 5-3
Västerås - Karlskoga 0-1

Never much doubt in this series. Karlskoga has a pretty solid team. 4 points (2+2) in four games by Linus Karlsson.

Björklöven vs Mora 3-1
Björklöven - Mora 3-4 (ot)
Björklöven - Mora 4-3 (ot)
Mora - Björklöven 3-5
Mora - Björklöven 2-3 (ot)

Surprisingly three of the games in this series went to overtime, despite Björklöven dominating on the ice throughout.
Mora made very fast turnarounds and were very effective in finishing and also had the best powerplay of the league, which lead to them scoring more goals than the general flow of the games would suggest. Total shots were 135-104, which translates to an average of 34-26 per game.

Södertälje vs Västervik 1-3
Södertälje - Västervik 4-2
Södertälje - Västervik 2-5
Västervik - Södertälje 4-1
Västervik - Södertälje 4-1

The only quarter final upset, but then, Södertälje finished 4th and Västervik 5th in the regular season, so not that much of an upset I guess...
Oh, and I forgot to mention that former Canuck Mikael Samuelsson is GM of Södertälje. But they're eliminated now anyway, so, yeah.


Semifinals are in a best out of seven format and will have these teams square off:

Timrå vs Västervik

Will be interesting to see. Timrå won the regular season, but were slumping a bit at the end and had clear problems handling AIK; they were trailing 2-0 and 3-1 in the last game that they won in overtime.
Västervik has very good goaltending and Timrå had problems beating them in the regular season, they split the points evenly between them:

Jan 15: Timrå-Västervik 3-0
Feb 21: Timrå-Västervik 3-4 (SO)
Mar 2 : Västervik-Timrå 3-1
Mar12: Västervik-Timrå 2-3 (OT)

Björklöven vs Karlskoga

Björklöven has been a rollercoaster team this season, mixing great games with horrible efforts. In part because Canadian goalie Kevin Poulin was injured twice, and none of the backups turned out to be serviceable. That being said, they have played well against all the top contenders, and the really awkward games were against bottom feeders who played shutdown hockey and got cheap goals against the terrible backup goalies we had.

As long as Kevin doesn't get injured we should be able to ride this out, and even if he does go down, we play better against teams that want to play hockey than those that just try to shut down the game, and the teams left at this point are all real hockey teams.

Björklöven had two regulation wins, a shootout win and one loss against Karlskoga in the regular season. Last season we beat them four out of four, so in the last eight games these teams have faced eachother, Karlskoga has only won once. Now they need to win four times in two weeks. Good luck with that!

Oct 23: Karlskoga-Björklöven 4-5
Nov 25: Björklöven-Karlskoga 7-1
Jan 11: Björklöven-Karlskoga 0-1
Feb 3 : Karlskoga-Björklöven 3-4 (SO)

Anyway, Linus Karlsson plays for Karlskoga, and as I will be glued to the TV for this entire series I will get a chance to get a good look at him.

[Madcombinepilot]

Jesus Per.. with a breakdown like that, you should do the next GDT!

Excellent job!

[Per]

Karlskoga won the first game in the semifinal vs Björklöven by scoring the game winner early in the 6th period.

Björklöven dominated the first and most of the second period and had a 2-0 and 3-1 lead. Then with 20 seconds left of the second period, Karlskoga scored a garbage goal that after review was considered good, and that somehow shifted the momentum. In the third period Björklöven fell back to defend their one goal lead and Karlskoga took over. Linus Karlsson scored the game-tying 3-3 goal that brought the game to overtime.

The fourth and most of the fifth period Larlskoga won every puck battle and vastly outshot Björklöven. It was Kevin Poulin in the crease that prevented them from scoring. Then at the end of the fifth, after killing of a penaly, Björklöven started to regain some of their swagger. Right at the start of the sixth period, Olle Liss had a great opportunity to win the game for Björklöven, but missed, and in the following counterattack Franzén scored for Karlskoga.

Hell of a game.

Linus Karlsson is quite good, and his line was behind all four goals scored by Karlskoga. Björklöven’s second goal was caused by a giveaway by Linus, but you can see him in front of thr crease on Karlskoga’s psychologically important second goal late in the second period, and then he scored the game tying 3-3 with like seven minutes on the clock in regulation and he was on the ice for the game winning goal as well.

Footage: https://www.hockeyallsvenskan.se/play/v ... autoplay=1

So, Björklöven lost the first battle, but I’m still optimistic about winning the war.

Karlskoga was basically just rolling three lines and five d-men for most of the game. They had four injured players, including two top four d-men, before this game, and suffered two more injuries during the game. Their best remaining d-man twisted his elbow and one of their second line forwards managed to block a shot with his face. He came back to play a few more shifts, but then left for the hospital.

Meanwhile Björklöven was rolling 13 forwards and seven d-men, with another two forwards and two d-men watching from the One of the resting forwards being JT Brown of Tampa/Ducks/Wild fame, more than 300 NHL games in his cv. He was a bit sore from blocking a shot with his foot in the last game of the quarter final, but is not listed as injured and will most likely play next game. With all players being healthy, Björklöven has a lot more depth than Karlskoga, and in a seven game series with games every second day, that will certainly make a difference. On Tuesday we can rest those that are most banged up and add the players that rested last night, and the team will be no weaker. In fact, adding JT Brown adds more skill as well as more sandpaper. But Karlskoga has problems finding just nine servicable forwards and five d-men. It may work for one game, but not for seven!

So I remain hopeful! We lost the first game vs Mora in the quarterfinal as well, then eliminated them in straight games.
All we need to do is win four of the six next games. Walk in the park!

[Per]

Oh, and Timrå is ahead 2-0 in their semifinal vs Västervik.

Apr 3: Timrå-Västervik 3-1
Apr 5: Timrå-Västervik 4-3 ot (gwg Jonathan Dahlén)

[Per]

Björklöven bounced back woth a comfortable 5-2 win to tie the series.

Karlskoga’s starting goalie pulled his groin at the end of the first period. He could not get up from the ice, nor could he skate.
He won’t play again this season.

The good news is their backup has not played a game since mid February and has a .850 svs percentage for the season!
What’s that smell? Oh, yes, it’s the sweet fragrance of victory!

Karlsson was less visible tonight, but still one of Karlskoga’s better players.

[Cousin Strawberry]

What a bjork lover

[Per]

Crazy game last night, fifth of the semifinal.

Björklöven was not playing well in the first period, and Karlskoga got a 2-0 lead.
Then in the second period, Björklöven found another gear, won every battle and scored five goals in ten minutes.
And then, at the end of the same period, the idiot refs found two incredibly silly calls to give Karlskoga a five on three powerplay (the first a holding, an iffy call, but in the regular season probably OK, the second - a Björklöven player was pushed and fell on the stick of an opponent and got called for holding the stick... )
Karlskoga has a really good powerplay and managed to score twice, first five on three, then five on four.

Then Björklöven decided to play defence throughout the third period. Just keeping Karlskoga to the perimeter.
It worked, and they won 5-4, taking a 3-2 lead in the series.

The series so far:
April 4 : Karlskoga-Björklöven 4-3 ot
April 6 : Karlskoga-Björklöven 2-5
April 8 : Björklöven-Karlskoga 1-2 ot
April 10: Björklöven-Karlskoga 6-3
April 12: Karlskoga-Björklöven 4-5

A huge difference between the teams is that Karlskoga has one great line and then mostly filler, wheras Björklöven has four scoring lines. In this last game, all of Karlskoga’s goals came from their first line; Henrik Björklund had 3 goals and 1 assist, Linus Karlsson had 1 goal and 2 assists. Only five playes got points.
In contrast, 13 different players were credited with points from Björklöven’s five goals. I think this depth is a huge strength for Björklöven. And they can focus on just shutting down Karlskoga’s first line, which they do fairly well. Three of Karlskoga’s goals came on the powerplay, only one (Linus’s) was equal strength.

Linus is very impressive. Strong, smart player. Hard to control.
I think it would be a good idea to bring him over to camp and see if he can make the team. If the Hog could, I think Linus might be able too.

Here is footage from the game, and as mentioned already, Linus was involved in three of Karlskoga’s goals and on the ice for all four. I think you will like what you see.

https://www.hockeyallsvenskan.se/play/v ... autoplay=1

[ESQ]

Linus is very impressive. Strong, smart player. Hard to control.
I think it would be a good idea to bring him over to camp and see if he can make the team. If the Hog could, I think Linus might be able too.

Here is footage from the game, and as mentioned already, Linus was involved in three of Karlsoga’s goals and on the ice for all four. I think you will like what you see.

https://www.hockeyallsvenskan.se/play/v ... autoplay=1

Wow, high praise from Mr. Bjorkloven!

Do I have this right - Hoglander was a 3rd-liner in the SHL, putting up "ok" numbers. Karlsson is a first-liner in Swe-1, putting up excellent numbers but in a lesser league.

And viz Dahlen, Karlsson is putting up Swe-1 numbers comparable to Dahlen's in draft +1 and draft+2, but in his draft +3 year.

Sounds like we could have something there, perhaps slightly ahead of Gadjovich and Lind?

[Micky]

Linus is very impressive. Strong, smart player. Hard to control.
I think it would be a good idea to bring him over to camp and see if he can make the team. If the Hog could, I think Linus might be able too.

Here is footage from the game, and as mentioned already, Linus was involved in three of Karlskoga’s goals and on the ice for all four. I think you will like what you see.

https://www.hockeyallsvenskan.se/play/v ... autoplay=1

Really does look like it's time now. Looks stronger then he did. Definitely should get a long hard look at Canuck's camp and pre-season games.

We very much need the help up front. If the Canucks think he could deal with an NHL schedule, see no reason not to move on this.

[Cousin Strawberry]

Maybe theres your homegrown 3c Topper.

[Curmudgeon]

Crazy game last night, fifth of the semifinal.

Björklöven was not playing well in the first period, and Karlskoga got a 2-0 lead.
Then in the second period, Björklöven found another gear, won every battle and scored five goals in ten minutes.
And then, at the end of the same period, the idiot refs found two incredibly silly calls to give Karlskoga a five on three powerplay (the first a holding, an iffy call, but in the regular season probably OK, the second - a Björklöven player was pushed and fell on the stick of an opponent and got called for holding the stick... )
Karlskoga has a really good powerplay and managed to score twice, first five on three, then five on four.

Then Björklöven decided to play defence throughout the third period. Just keeping Karlskoga to the perimeter.
It worked, and they won 5-4, taking a 3-2 lead in the series.

The series so far:
April 4 : Karlskoga-Björklöven 4-3 ot
April 6 : Karlskoga-Björklöven 2-5
April 8 : Björklöven-Karlskoga 1-2 ot
April 10: Björklöven-Karlskoga 6-3
April 12: Karlskoga-Björklöven 4-5

A huge difference between the teams is that Karlskoga has one great line and then mostly filler, wheras Björklöven has four scoring lines. In this last game, all of Karlskoga’s goals came from their first line; Henrik Björklund had 3 goals and 1 assist, Linus Karlsson had 1 goal and 2 assists. Only five playes got points.
In contrast, 13 different players were credited with points from Björklöven’s five goals. I think this depth is a huge strength for Björklöven. And they can focus on just shutting down Karlskoga’s first line, which they do fairly well. Three of Karlskoga’s goals came on the powerplay, only one (Linus’s) was equal strength.

Linus is very impressive. Strong, smart player. Hard to control.
I think it would be a good idea to bring him over to camp and see if he can make the team. If the Hog could, I think Linus might be able too.

Here is footage from the game, and as mentioned already, Linus was involved in three of Karlskoga’s goals and on the ice for all four. I think you will like what you see.

https://www.hockeyallsvenskan.se/play/v ... autoplay=1

Thanks for the link Per. The Karlsson goal was a good one and it looks like 12 points in 10 playoff games for him so far. He has the size to play the same style over here so maybe it is time to bring him over.

[Per]

Thanks for the link Per. The Karlsson goal was a good one and it looks like 12 points in 10 playoff games for him so far. He has the size to play the same style over here so maybe it is time to bring him over.

It’s actually 9 in 9 (4G 5A), but still good. 51 in 52 (20G 31A) in the regular season.

Should probably point out though that Dahlén has 11 in 10 in the playoffs and 71 in 45 (25G 46A) in the regular season, so comparing the stats Dahlén still comes out on top. But I don’t know. Linus just looks stronger out there and Dahlén is always complaining about the refs and shit and just seems to be focusing on the wrong stuff.

If Dahlén could just fix his mental issues - not suggesting he is mentally ill, but he needs to focus on the right things - he will be a great player. I get a feeling Linus is more mentally stable, and with almost the same skills as Dahlén. He could be more NHL ready, even if Jonathan scores a wee bit more.

[ESQ]

If Dahlén could just fix his mental issues - not suggesting he is mentally ill, but he needs to focus on the right things - he will be a great player. I get a feeling Linus is more mentally stable, and with almost the same skills as Dahlén. He could be more NHL ready, even if Jonathan scores a wee bit more.

There's definitely something...unique about Dahlen prioritizing playing for his hometown team above his own career progression, or even advancing to a more-challenging SHL team.

Most pro athletes are driven by a desire to always improve and be the best, but Dahlen is motivated by taking his hometown team to glory by SHL promotion.

That isn't going to happen this year, if he sticks in Timra for another season then he'll be a few months shy of his 25th birthday by the time he takes another shot at North America.

[Curmudgeon]

Thanks for the link Per. The Karlsson goal was a good one and it looks like 12 points in 10 playoff games for him so far. He has the size to play the same style over here so maybe it is time to bring him over.

It’s actually 9 in 9 (4G 5A), but still good. 51 in 52 (20G 31A) in the regular season.

Should probably point out though that Dahlén has 11 in 10 in the playoffs and 71 in 45 (25G 46A) in the regular season, so comparing the stats Dahlén still comes out on top. But I don’t know. Linus just looks stronger out there and Dahlén is always complaining about the refs and shit and just seems to be focusing on the wrong stuff.

If Dahlén could just fix his mental issues - not suggesting he is mentally ill, but he needs to focus on the right things - he will be a great player. I get a feeling Linus is more mentally stable, and with almost the same skills as Dahlén. He could be more NHL ready, even if Jonathan scores a wee bit more.

Karlsson is also almost 2 years younger as well so if he's already better mentally prepared, skates decently, and has the size, I saw him listed at 6'2" 190lbs, you're right that he's more NHL or North American ready. He's 21 now so hopefully they can get him signed and over here next season, the Canucks could really use another team owned center to go with Focht in Utica.

[Cousin Strawberry]

I hope Focht makes it so i can say 'get Focht' regularly with relevance